


13, 000, 000 atm (+ 1)

by ScarTissue



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (again), Angst, Character Study, Kent is a douchecanoe without a paddle, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:40:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4011406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarTissue/pseuds/ScarTissue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It's good pressure,” Kent repeats. “You’re gonna be a fucking diamond. Nothing can break you.”</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Or: Anxiety looks different on everyone ( <em> to</em>  everyone).</p>
            </blockquote>





	13, 000, 000 atm (+ 1)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm- I'm sorry.

So if you bury a piece of coal, the story goes, and leave it alone for a hundred or a thousand or a million years or so (Kent can’t really remember much about science class except that his teacher was a blue jackets fan), when you dig it up it’ll be a diamond. No oil-water-argon concoction to add, no machine press to apply, no photosynthesis nitrogen cycle shit to sift through. Just time + pressure and poof: diamond.

 

Thats what he used to say to Jack, anyway. “Its good pressure,” Kent said softly, when the edges of Jack’s eyes blurred a bit, when he started to shake a little on and off the ice (when he was drinking to blackout every time he drank and Kent just went with it, too high on _First Draft Rivals_ and _Prodigal Sons_ and just life to look too closely, when he started to self fucking medicate behind his back- or maybe he was just turning it). “Its good pressure,” He said firmly, the night Jack finally opened his mouth and confirmed what Kent already knew: the draft was really starting to freak him out. “Its gonna make us stronger. You’ll come out hard as a fucking diamond, Zimms. Nothing will break you.”

****  
  


Jack had just looked at him for a minute, eyes sparkling with reflected light, before sighing through his nose like he always did when he was tired. He just drew his knees up and leaned on Kent’s shoulder, breathing measuredly, _in, out, in, out,_ matching the rise of Kent’s chest perfectly.They were sitting on Jack’s roof in mid july, he remembers- or at least he thinks, they sat on that roof so many times, all the time.

****  
  


(Kent was from the big city, in the U.S no less. He had never seen so many stars. He didn’t even know there were that many before he went to visit Jack for the first time. Jack used to drag him to lay back with him on the rough shingles, and hold his wrist lightly, so lightly to trace out constellations he never honestly saw in the sky. Orion and the big dipper and Hydra were just stars to him- but he like how Jack held his hand.)

****  
  
  


Kent had scratched through Jack’s hair and said nothing. Things would be better when they were in the thick of it, taking the NHL by the force of nature they were together. It was just pre-game jitters, and Zimms had his Dad riding him too- that would fuck with anyone’s head, if Bad Bob was your father, and moreover everybody and their brother knew it and was determined to tear you to pieces just to dick pull over it in the locker room. It would be fine soon, once the hype was over. Everything was coming up roses.

****  
  


(It wasn’t fine soon, and it was far from fucking over.)

****  
  
  
  
  


{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

****  
  
  
  
  
  


Kent actually remembers the whole thing pretty clearly- he got a call at three in the morning, Alicia bawling her eyes out and barely understandable as ice slid into Kent’s veins like it’d been stored behind his wrists, just waiting to bloom into his system and freeze him shut. He got in a car and drove with a lead foot straight to the airport (he hadn’t even called his mom to say he was going- he had just left, because, _don’t fucking lose it Parse, he’ll be fine when you get there, he’ll be fine, he’ll be fine he has to be fine **he can’t leave me**_ \- because it was _Jack_.), on a plane where he vibrated in his seat the whole way, another car that he almost crashed twice, barged through the hospital doors like the devil was on his heels, but he still was so freaking cold- right into Bad Bob’s famous fists.

****  
  


And that’s where it _really_ got interesting.

****  
  


“ _Where were you_ ,” he screamed, Kent’s shirt balled in his fists, knee on his chest, and fuck, he had still been in his warm up clothes. “You two are together _all the time_ , every _minute_ since you _six fucking teen_ , “He punctuates every word with a hard shake to Kent’s whole body, and he doesn’t even know where Alicia is- “Why didn’t you know how bad it was? Where-”

****  
  


Kent shoves him off with nothing but force of will and sheer rage. “Where were _you_ ,” he seethes. “You’re his father, which you constantly remind him- you think that has nothing to do with this?” Kent rubbed his aching chest and laughed, and it was something raw and terrible from a dark place yawning open inside him, that maybe wasn’t there the day before. He was crying, but it didn’t hurt that much. “You think I’m only culpable in this? _You’re his Dad_!” Kent was the one screaming now, right in Bob’s face, and the man looked so shocked that he could actually get a word in- or maybe he was just staring at the bruise he put on Kent’s face, who knows. “ _You’re_ supposed to protect him, you’re his _idol_ , he just wants to please everyone because you told him too, _where do you get off_ -”

****  
  


Bob gathers himself to get one last _crack_ across Kent’s face, hard enough to turn his head. He just stands there and blinks for a moment, because Alicia had been in the corner the whole time: shes staring blankly at a red pill bottle, rolling it between her fingers like someone might a pistol, loaded, small and lethal.

A _red_ bottle.

****  
  


Kent kept his sleeping pills in a red bottle. Black hawk colors. He’d special ordered it, even got Zimms one in Habs colors when they gave him anxiety meds.

 

He’d had enough in there to last for a _year_.

****  
  
  
  


Kent went to vomit in the hospital parking lot and didn’t come back.

****  
  
  
  
  
  
  


{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

****  
  
  
  
  
  


The rest of that year was a big, flashing blur. Kent can pick out bits and pieces, practicing his game face in the mirror: press conference calm, team meeting smile, camera evangelical, in the bedroom alone gritted teeth and furrowed brow because he cannot _fucking lose it right now_ , not even once or it’s game over.

****  
  


( _Jack lost it once. Look where he is_.)

****  
  


“Its good pressure,” he gasps once he’s cinched the first pick. Kent hands are fisted so tight in lank blond hair he can feel it tearing, head between his knees in a locked bathroom stall, with the media going absolutely bonkers outside the door. Zimms isn’t by his side, taking the next number, chirping mercilessly about how he's still taller, and _they’re just being nice Parse, we all know Canadians are just better, but don’t worry, I'm looking out for you-_ “It's good pressure,” Kent repeats. “You’re gonna be a fucking diamond. Nothing can break you.”

****  
  


There’s knocking at the door, but he can’t hear it right now. Phantom hands are moving his wrist in sense patterns, making stories out of hot air, far away from here.

****  
  


 

_Did Jack feel like this all the time?_

****  
  


 

“Pressure makes diamonds. Nothing can fucking break me.”

****  
  


 

_Not even you._

****  
  


Kent wipes his face and realizes his glove dust is still on the edges of his wrists. It looks like sooty coal.

****  
  


He gets up and walks out the door.

****  
  
  
  
  


{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

****  
  
  
  
  


It takes Kent almost five years to get it.

****  
  


He used to dust his gloves with the cheap black floury shit, right on the skin so they didn’t slip, even when Zimms chirped him for looking like an lung cancer ad. He just laughed at him, and rolled his fingers to grind it further down, into fine, fine, coal. _Good pressure. Unbreakable. Time plus pressure plus tension plus Kent plus Jack plus pills minus Jack equals unbreakable._

__****  
  


All Kent’s had is pressure, and time. Five years in the league, three as captain, nearly twenty in preparation for all of this: the media and the  fans and the team and he can’t let anyone, anyone down or they all go down together like a stack of cards. The stakes have never been higher. The stakes only get higher. Win turns into streak turns into precedent: He can’t lose now, he literally can’t or it's over. He’s over.

****  
  


_Zimms hasn’t had much time_ , he thinks. The rehab, college in another freaking country, captainship and training and homework- he’s had no time at all. It’s all been spent adjusting.

****  
  
  
  


(And much less pressure without silver on his shoulders. Or maybe phantom things weigh more. Kent would know.

****  
  
  


_See, there’s Polaris, you can follow it to the tail of- dammit Kenny, why are your wrists always caked in this shit? Don’t you ever bathe, merde its the middle of the summer, you got it all over me-_

****  
  


“Good pressure,” he said into his chest, another game another arena another panic attack in another bathroom, clutching his wrists so tightly he was losing feeling, and _good, maybe if they fall off I can forget how Jack held them like precious glass, maybe I can forget he hasn’t returned my phone calls in five years but I can’t stop calling, maybe I can just forget_ , “Good pressure. Unbreakable.”)

****  
  
  


When Kent walked into that party, that god forsaken shithole Jack lives in, he- he looked so _alive_. Jack was glowing at that blond boy, like he was catching off his halo. His eyes sparkled off the low light, the sharded fragments. Even when they darkened into Kent’s they still _cut_.

****  
  
  
  


People aren’t rocks, hes starting to get.

 

  
  
Kent looks at his hands and wonders what exactly he is.


End file.
